


Deepground's failed solider, Rosamond Strife

by Sylvia_Forest



Category: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: But Vincent will still have the spotlight most of the time, Cloud is going to be more important to the events with Deepground, Everyone will show up eventually - Freeform, OC is Cloud's adopted older sister, OC is a mercenary, OC is named Rosamond Strife, Trying a new type of writing sytle, Will try to follow the events of Dirge of Cerberus as best as possible, no promises though, will have events referenced from every story from FFVII and its spinoffs, will reference the original FFVII game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24172075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvia_Forest/pseuds/Sylvia_Forest
Summary: Summary and Title Changed because the story escaped me and has become something different from the original summary.She never thought the day would come when she would meet death, so when those bastards came for her charges she found herself fighting with all her might, even invoking a power she swore she would never use around people. But even that was proven to be not enough to kill her attackers. As the blades slid into her body she thought one last time of her brother and mother, and the promise she would never be able to keep now.She wasn't ready for death, but she had accepted that her end was near. Except her eyes opened again. She was still alive, and she was in a place she didn't know existed. The darkness covered everything, and the only light point was the little girl that she was hired to protect, everything else was gray blimps that could have been friend or foe.As the shadows crushed the glass tank in their rage, they screamed to feel the young girl, to give her back what was forced on them, and Rosamond didn't fight. She embraced the girl and let the shadows pump emotion through them both, leaving them both sobbing for what has happened to the other.
Kudos: 3





	1. The job that changed it all

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I am trying out a new style of writing for this one. It's not something I have ever really done before, telling a story through one person's point of view with events and other things being brought up through notes or other little outsiders inserts.
> 
> For a little background, our OC is named Rosamond Strife and she is Cloud's adopted older sister. She is fighting her own power so she hardly notices things around her unless she needs to see them, so she is basically wandering through a gray world with the inhabitants all blobs she doesn't recognize or see any difference in unless she needs to work for those people as a bodyguard or something. This is why her chapters have barely any detail because it is told from her point of view, she doesn't see the detail, she doesn't see anything but gray. But she's not blind!
> 
> On that happy note! I hope everyone enjoys this new story and I can't wait to hear what you all think about how I'm approaching this so far. It's not into the events of Deepground just yet, but I will be right in the action further into the chapters!

When she was born, she never thought of herself as special. She was just another girl in the small village hidden in the Nibel Mountains and forgotten by the rest of Gaia. It wasn't until her first hunting trip, that she realized she was extraordinary. Her talents, her ability to control the shadows around her, allowed her to survive a run-in with a nesting female Nibel Dragon while the rest of her party was killed.

She was special in ways that no one understood. And that specialness got her chased out of her home and exiled from the only life she knew. She was only eight at the time. She wandered the Nibel mountains until she stumbled into a group of people, people so much different then she had ever known, and they took her back to their homes, to Nibelhiem.

She was taken in by a kind family, a young couple who had always wanted a child but the couple was having trouble conceiving. They viewed her as a blessing and gave her the name Rosamond. And when the first starving dragon came to town and attacked, she was the first to rush the massive beast, one of the shadow blades she had crafted in her hands. She didn't kill it, but she did drive it away. The villagers named her the guardian of the village, Nibelhiem's Guardian Angel. But something kept calling out to her, telling her to go further out, to leave Nibelheim. She was happy, but she wasn't content.

Two years later, Cloud Strife was born and she was taken with the small baby her adopted parents had shown her. A month later and her adopted father died upon the mountains while hunting. Her heart stung, but she vowed to never let her family suffer another loss again. She was only ten when the man she had learned the true meaning of family had died.

Cloud was five when she finally followed the tug and left Nibelheim. She kept the family name she was given and she moved on, heading out into the world beyond the mountains, her life beginning to change drastically. She had left Cloud telling him to be strong for their rapidly weakening mother, that she would return with medicine or a better doctor to help her, and Cloud smiled at her and challenged her to a stick fight, as a way to test both if they were ready to part from the other. She won, but she was proud. Cloud would be able to take good care of their mother until she returned.

**============**

_ June 20, 1999 _

_ Mom, _

_ I know I told you in the last letter that I was doing fine and you didn't have to worry about me, but you really don't have to send me any money. I move around too much to have a reliable address and you'd be wasting your money sending it to me. Use it for yourself and Cloud. I promise, once my job stabilizes I will be the one sending you money. _

_ I miss you both. And I know I should come see you and Cloud, but work is still too crazy. I'm doing really well with my job, a lot of people are coming to me for help with all kinds of things. But the better I do with every job, the more people search me out, and the more people who search for my services the more money I earn, but I'm still working way too much to come see you both. _

_ I know you and Cloud are doing well, I do still receive your letters when I'm visiting towns, and I'm friends with the trading company that does business up in Nibelheim, so I'm hoping they give you good discounts on the medicine I get them to bring to you. I have to pay for the medicine, but since I'm still slammed with work I can't bring it to you myself, so I'm sorry you have to pick up the amount I can't pay. _

_ I know you don't want to hear this in one of my letters mom, but I just want you to know that if something ever happens to me, everything I have managed to save up goes straight to you and Cloud. It's not a lot right now, but after my next few jobs, I should have more. I'm not planning on anything happening to me, I did promise to watch over you and Cloud until I'm old and the gray hair is from age and not because of dye, but my job takes me on dangerous paths. Monsters run rampant where I work, and while I can take care of myself and beat a few monsters, more always seem to keep popping up. _

_ I don't want to scare you, though I'm probably doing a bad job at that right now, but the monster population is getting so much worse and Shinra isn't doing anything to make any of the roads they don't use or any of the towns not allied to them any safer. _

_ I'm probably going to have to open the business to include the title Monster Slayer if nothing changes anytime soon. Then I know you're going to always be worrying about me. I'm sorry. _

_ Tell Cloud I love him. I'll try to visit as soon as things start to calm down some. Promise. _

_ Love you! _

**============**

**Date:** January 9, 2000

**Name:** Shalua Rui

**Reason for protection request:** My sister and I are being targeted by Shinra and we need help finding a safe place to hide from them. I'm requesting your assistance because you are known to be the only one able to outsmart and outmatch the Turks and the soldiers. You are also well known for not giving away any information about your clients unless given permission to talk about them. Please. We need help!

**Amount willing to pay:** I don't have much on me, but it is all yours if you help.

**(Amount waiting for job completion: 1,000,000 Gil)**

The job request form was interesting enough for the request. She had never taken on a job that had people actively being chased by Shinra. It seemed interesting. But the money amount. That had to be false. There was no way a woman the same age as her younger brother had that kind of money, not legally anyway. And if it was because of this money that Shinra was after them, then she had a duty to hand them over to the Turks.

Sure getting them away and to a safe place would be easy and wouldn't even put a dent in her savings, but she didn't like helping people who were breaking laws. It was against her principles, and besides, Shinra loved to pay her for bringing in dangerous criminals and terrorists. But at the same time, if she sided with the criminals and terrorists, Shinra never saw even a glimpse in a camera of them while she was on a job of protecting them.

"What could Shinra possibly want with two little girls?"

She frowned and then flipped herself upright, quickly untying the rope around her ankles. She dropped gracefully to the floor and stretched her sore muscles.

"Well, now that my workout is done," she looked back down at the request form. "Able to pay or not, these girls have no black marks in their history. I don't doubt for a second Shinra is trying to gain something from one of them, something not even I could find. What do you think, Zario?"

A low growl answered her.

She hummed as she folded the paper up and pushed it into her back pocket. "Guess your right. Only one way to find out. Sticking to my shadow or are you going to stick to the other shadows?"

The darkness behind her shifted and grew bigger, only to dim as her shadow became inky black.

"My shadow it is then," she laughed. "Well then, time to go meet our new clients and let them know I've accepted their request."

As she left the workout room and entered the shop portion of her home, her eyes caught the hand-drawn childish picture framed on her desk, the only spot of color in the gray typical store space. It was a picture of a tall woman with blonde hair, a small boy with blonde spikes on his head, and a medium-sized female with gray hair, though it was hard to tell what they were actually because it was stick figures in triangle dresses. They were standing by a small house with a chimney and the woods behind it. She smiled as she picked it up. She remembered when Cloud and her had drawn this together, mom sitting at the table drawing with them. Mom had made the same picture, but hers was more detailed and was still pinned on the kitchen door, it also had actual people and not stick figures.

"I should go back and see how mom's doing after this job," she sighed. A softer rumble answered her. "Yeah. They would freak out at seeing me now, wouldn't they? I left nine years ago as a fifteen-year-old still struggling to control the shadows that threaten to take over every day, and now I'm twenty-four and am now in full control of the shadows that dance violently around me."

She sighed again and carefully pulled the picture from the frame, folding it up and placing it into her shadow, where she felt the claws scrape across her hand before gently taking the picture from her. She didn't even bother tending to her bleeding hand as she moved to leave the building, only pulled a red cloth from one of the pockets on her jacket, and wiped the blood from her hand. It had already healed.

**============**

_ January 12, 2000 _

_ Mom, _

_ I haven't gotten any letters in the mail from you yet, so they are probably stuck somewhere. Monster nests have been popping up everywhere, and while Shinra finally started doing something about it last month, it's already much too late. Unless they want to send one of their precious squads of SOLDIERs out to clean out the dozens of dens everywhere over here, I'm going to be stuck going into the woods to clear out dens, mountains to kill flocks, and even take a dive into the ocean and rivers to clear those out of monsters as well. Life has gotten harder over here. _

_ I have another job lined up, a bodyguard detail to help two orphans find a safer place to live. I've seen them around and they seem like good girls. I'm going to help them. It's kinda my fault anyway that they are orphans. If I had just been faster clearing out the monsters near where they lived then maybe their parents would still be alive. _

_ I know you would tell me to not blame myself for this, but I can't help it. These girls don't deserve to be alone like this. I'm twenty-four now. If I can't find a family to take them in, then I might just adopt them myself. The oldest one is Cloud's age, looks just as stubborn as him as well. The younger one is nine, or about to turn nine. I think I could be a good guardian to them. But there will be others who will be better than me, so I'll try to find them first. _

_ I have more money then I needed to buy myself a small place, and killing monsters is actually quite profitable, if you know how to harvest the monster properly to get the materials that blacksmiths need to make weapons and armor, and the poison glands to help the alchemists make antidotes for the various poisons. So I'm sending you the extra. Don't worry about the amount. I'm making more faster than I can spend it, so this small amount is nothing. _

_ Tell Cloud I love him! And that I don't write him letters because last time I did he sent me one back telling me never to write to him again unless I had a date that I would be coming home. Oh! Tell Cloud I also perfected my motorcycle and once I get done with this job I'm going to take a break and come visit! I'll give you both a ride on it. And I'll spend a month with you guys before coming back to work. _

_ Don't worry about the business, I have employees that I hired to help me out, so taking a break like they have all told me I should do will please them. They were the ones that told me to take a three-month-long vacation to make up for the nine years that I have been working non-stop. So if anything you should be thanking them for being reliable and dependent employees. If they weren't I wouldn't even be able to think about taking a break! _

_ Well, after I send this letter I'm going to take my last job before my break. I shouldn't be any longer than a month, but I'm not sure how much time this job is going to really take. I'll be by before Cloud's birthday though! I promise you that! _

_ Love you, Mom! _

**_(Attached is a small pouch with 600,000 Gil and two materia. A note at the bottom reads, "The materia are a baby Cure and a baby Fire. A late birthday present for Cloud since work was too hectic for me to send anything for his 13th birthday. Happy birthday buddy!")_ **

**============**

The sun was reaching its peak in the cloudless sky by the time she caught sight of Shalua Rui. She looked just like the files had said she would, shoulder-length red hair, slightly tanned, and wearing some good awful purple button-up shirt. Though as she approached the girl, she slowed her stroll to watch her surroundings. This girl was wanted by Shinra after all, she was bound to be followed by the Turks, even now when she thought she had probably outrun them long enough to get help. And sure enough, a few recognizable people were watching her charge, one of them making his way slowly over to them as she looked around.

"Shalua Rui?" She asked as she approached casually. She watched emotionless as the teen jumped and turned to face her, pushing a younger girl behind her. The younger girl, Shelke she presumed, looked almost like her sister, short red hair that was in slight disarray, wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt and a slightly darker blue skirt that ended just below her knees.

She couldn't help the almost silent snort when she saw Shalua was wearing what was probably supposed to be an equally horrible purple miniskirt, on an older woman. The belt holding it up and against her waist made her look like she was wearing ripped up curtain drapes. Not a good look on a young woman.

"Who are you?" Shalua asked, her right hand twitching towards her left side.

"I'm Rosamond, the mercenary you asked to protect you," She said, rolling her neck. Eyes were snapping to her, and she couldn't help the satisfied smirk that graced her face. "You wanted to get away from Shinra, yes?"

"Y-yes," Shalua replied, her mouth opening to say more.

"Well standing in a very public place where you can't see your enemies unless you have a trained eye," she said calmly, her hand flicking out towards where someone was making a beeline towards them. "Makes my job harder. Did you know you had at least five Turks watching you?"

Shalua stiffened and looked around rapidly, her eyes seeming to scan every one to find the Turks. Rosamond watched Shalua eyes widened as she looked at the man who had frozen stiff, his body turning black before her eyes.

"Don't worry," Rosamond said lazily, glancing at the man quickly turning darker than the inky darkness of the abyss. The black looked nice against the constant gray that this stupid town was. "He won't die. Though when they release him he's going to wish he had been killed. Now follow me. Or you can kiss your freedom goodbye."

She didn't wait for Shalua or Shelke to give her confirmation that they would follow, she just strolled right on by and kept walking casually to where her favorite vehicle was parked just outside the town she lived in.

This would be her last mission on this continent for a while. She missed her family and was more than ready to just go back to the other continent and visit her mom and brother. This one last job then she could take her break.

"So how do you feel about off-road driving?"

She was grinning as she heard the very loud gasps as they turned the corner to reveal her monster ride. The motorcycle was hand-built, the frame was bulky but sleek, and the motor was of her own design. This baby ran faster than every other vehicle she had ever encountered. If only she could make it so that it could run across the ocean instead of having to transport it across the ocean with a boat.

"Gonna have to squeeze into the seat attachment, girls. I don't ride with people behind me."

She laughed as she shot off like a bullet, the girls in the sidecar screaming at the sudden speed. She couldn't fault them, she screamed as well when she first drove her monstrous motorbike, except back then it was more screaming as she crashed into the rocks and trees and even into the river as she tested and created her perfect bike.

Cloud would enjoy this. Maybe she should build Cloud a second bike just like hers for him. An approving roar answered her thoughts, and she laughed again. A bike to make mom have a heart attack would be the perfect fourteenth birthday present for her younger brother!

**============**

_ Located on the counter of the Mercenary Guild, addressed to V, sits a note, written and sealed by the owner herself. The contents are never disclosed to anyone but the Turk who opens it. And he burns it before anyone else can ever read it. He knows the owner well enough to know that if she left a note behind to be found by him, she felt something bad was about to happen. Her gut instinct was never wrong after all. _

_ As he walked out of the building, he couldn't help but frown. She predicted her own death, told him to wait a month, unless word got to him sooner, then to send all the money she had amassed to her mother and brother and to let her second in command know that he was now the owner of the business. It couldn't be helped. If she wasn't back behind that counter or sending him another note before the month was up, he would do as she asked. _

_ "She would have made a wonderful Turk." Was what he muttered looking back over the building again, before leaving to go about the rest of his business. _

**============**

Rosamond had grown attached to the young girls remarkably quickly over the two weeks they had been traveling together. She almost wished she hadn't gotten them so close to their destination already. Another three days and they would be in the one place Shinra couldn't touch them. And not for a lack of trying either.

The island they were currently heading for was rumored to hold the Temple of the Ancients, but only a select few were ever able to enter the woods that covered almost the entire island. She had heard rumors about it, and for the two young girls, it was probably the only place they could ever escape to.

The island had a certain power to it that seemed to hide it from those who sought to cause harm, even if they didn't mean it towards the forest itself but someone who had managed to get inside it. It was the perfect place for them to hide in, though she would be unable to follow them, she had done her best in those two weeks to teach them how to care for themselves while they were in the woods. It was hard work making sure the two girls were prepared, especially since she had to teach them how to fight properly, so if they ever were attacked within the forest they would be able to protect themselves.

She didn't want to even think about what would happen if she couldn't get these girls into the woods. Zario was growling and shifting more and more each day as something dangerous kept getting closer to them. She hoped V had gotten her message, whatever was following them was really bad news. She could feel the end coming for her like the danger was death itself. She regretted not being able to follow through with her promise to her mom. Hopefully, her bike would be safe enough for Cloud to receive it when everything was sent to them.

"Miss Rosa," a young voice rang out, snapping her from her thoughts. "Are you okay? You've been staring into space for a while now. If Shalua didn't come back when she did, our food would have been turned to ash."

"Sorry," she shook her head. "It's nothing. Is the food burned too much to eat or is it still salvageable?"

"It was still savable," Shalua said. "We already ate. You've been staring into space for a long time."

She blinked, looked down at the plate in her lap, and sighed. She waved away the rest of their questions as she ate her cold food and then sent them off to sleep. They had to leave early in the morning, so she was going to let them sleep as much as they could.

She yawned halfway through her night watch shift and leaned against the rock behind her to try to keep herself awake. It was a losing battle as her eyes got heavier and her body slowly stopped responding to her.

'Your distraction will cost your life.'

Rosamond jolted awake, her hidden blade slicing through flesh to douse her in blood. She took a moment to blink the blood from her eyes and then she was jumping over the body that had fallen before her and was slashing another attacker through the neck, her blades glistening with blood as she danced between the bodies of the troopers that had managed to sneak up on her.

Their gray bodies hit the ground, painted only by the blood gushing from the life-ending wounds. Even dancing between weapons and dead bodies, Rosamond still frowned and wondered, not for the first time, if something was wrong with her eyes because people shouldn't be as gray as these people were, even in death.

She knew now why she was so tired as a scared trooper tried to cast sleep on her again. Zario didn't like that much, and the man found himself screaming as the giant shadow wolf leaped out of nowhere and ripped his throat out. She heard Shalua and Shelke whimpering and whispering in the only tent they had as she laid waste to the troopers that were foolish enough to attack her.

Only when the last trooper fell lifeless to her feet, did she pull Zario back into her shadow and try to wipe the blood off her face. She knew it wouldn't matter, Shalua and Shelke were going to see the carnage anyway when they left the tent, but if she could make herself less blood-covered maybe they wouldn't be as terrified of her.

Rosamond stopped and looked down at her black outfit, covered in blood with shadows dancing around her feet. Since when did she want people to not be terrified of her? All of her charges were terrified of her, and she never minded. Why these girls?

Then she felt it, that unmistakable tug of something reaching out for her, and she whipped around to find the person who had just tried to mix materia and control her, only to find herself staring at Shelke, and finally, everything made sense. She knew exactly why Shinra was after the sisters, why they were after Shelke. And if Shelke Rui wasn't a nine-year-old girl, Rosamond would have cut her down where she stood, just like she had to the last person with this ability who had tried to control her every thought and emotion.

Shelke was special, born with a rare ability that let her touch the minds of others and so much more. Shelke's ability could be turned into a weapon for Shinra to control, to make more weapons out of, to take over more of the planet. Shelke was too young to have proper control of her ability, Shinra was probably going to use that to their advantage.

She realized that Shelke would never be safe anywhere she went. Shinra could be patient and wait for her to come out of the woods and back where they could get her, or they would work on breaking the seal on the woods, the very seal that she was relying on to protect the girls.

Rosamond felt sick. And for the next two days, that feeling never went away. Not even after she bathed before going to buy a suitable boat to make it to the beach she knew was on the island, not even after they set sail. It was this hypersensitivity that probably saved Shalua from a fate worse than death, as she felt the air turn and the water change slightly darker, and then Shalua was thrown onto the island, disappearing into the trees, as her and Shelke were caged and electrocuted until they couldn't stay conscious anymore.

Her last thought before she couldn't think any more was that she should have thrown the girls at the same time.

**============**

_ February 12, 2000 _

_ Dear Mrs. Strife, _

_ I regret to inform you that your daughter, Rosamond Strife, was killed while on the job. I personally knew her and I know she was a good person. Good and smart. She never took a job she wasn't at least ninety-nine percent sure she could complete. I know I will not have the answers you are looking for about how your daughter died, and I am so very sorry. I wish I could do more for you and your son in your time of grief, then just give you your daughter's things. I understand how hard it is to lose a child. _

_ Sent with this letter is everything she asked me to send to you. She asked that I make sure your medicine continues to reach you, and I will do exactly that. Your medicine is now going to be delivered to you by one of my own personal men or me myself. You will never have to pay another Gil for your medicine. _

**_(Ink splatters on the page as if someone broke a pen over it.)_ **

_ I have just been informed that my men have found the reason for your daughter's death. She was killed in an explosion that was from a bomb planted in the vehicle she was using. They have identified that the bomb was timer-based and was placed into the vehicle right after purchase while the dealer was cleaning it where she couldn't see it. _

**_(There is a line of black scratch marks so heavy and dark it must be covering mistakes or failed starts to the next line.)_ ** _ This sickens me, the lies they have blatantly told me. I know what vehicle your daughter was in. I saw the scene of the accident. And I know for a fact that your daughter did not explode. The foolish police don't seem even like they would look into this further and are actually trying to cover this up as a suicide. _

_ I know this is not something you should tell someone in a letter to tell them their child is dead, but you deserve the truth. Someone targeted your daughter and from the looks of the scene they tried to kidnap her, but when she proved too difficult to take down, they killed her and everyone she was with to leave no witnesses. _

_ I'm so very sorry. _

_ DOAR _

_ V. _

**_(There was a box sent with this letter. It contained unsent letters, documents that prove ownership of a house in Costa Del Sol that was to be put under the name of Cloud Strife if something were to happen to Rosamond Strife, a beautifully crafted sword made of black metal with the words 'Guardian Blade' etched into the base of the blade itself, and multiple pouches of Gil totaling 10,000,000,000. A note is found at the bottom of the box. The note reads "I'm sorry I never got to come back home even for an hour to see you both. I never forgot you even if my letters were erratic. I love you both. I bought a house for us, it's in the nicer part of Costa Del Sol, where we can be warm and have lots of shade because you'd burn easily in the sun after all that time in the mountains. You don't have to move into it. It's all paid for in full already, and if you aren't ready to leave the mountain yet, I have a man ready to take over all the places I own. He will make sure the house doesn't go unused, and if you ever do want to move in, he will make sure it's clean and ready for you and Cloud. I know you probably will hide this from Cloud, but the sword is his. I made it by hand for his 14th birthday and I just got finished making it. I have a job to clear out the mountain tunnel that Shinra uses as an express train way next week so my December is ending in a cold dark tunnel in a mountain. I didn't plan on dying mom. I just made so many enemies while doing the jobs I've never told you about. I only wanted you to be proud of me. So I never told you about the dark side of my job. If you want to know what I did, ask V. He will be around at least once to help you and Cloud. He promised me he would, and nothing is going to make him break his promise to me, not even death. I love you Mom, and I'm sorry I died before you. And I love you too Cloud. I know the letters I never sent make SOLDIER look bad, but if you really want to join them, I wish you luck. Training for them is brutal and you will have to suck up your pride and change your attitude if you find yourself falling behind the rest of your peers. Try not to give Mom too much to worry about. SOLDIER isn't going anywhere. I love you, Cloud.")_ **


	2. Memories of the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories and events keep moving forward, even when you don't want them to. And sometimes, it's better to leave memories behind and never go searching for answers. Sometimes, the pain is never worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So we're getting closer to the beginning of Deepground, or maybe we already reached it. We have a surprise visit in our story, and more on the important people in our beloved Rosamond's life. This does skip time a lot. Not everything is happening at the same time.
> 
> The first part is a conversation she had in the past when she was eight in 1984 with Vincent. It was the conversation where their relationship began to blossom.
> 
> The next part is in 0000 (or 2000 as I'm calling it in Rosamond's letters because she doesn't follow Shinra events. The date changes, according to the Final Fantasy Wiki, are presumably because of Shinra winning the Wutai War, which ended in February 0001.) For those of you who don't know the significance of the year, this is the year that Shelke was kidnapped and taken to Deepground.
> 
> The next part is kinda tricky because it's not really touched upon in the wiki or the game about the year when the revolt in Deepground happened. So, I'm saying it happened while Cloud and Co were chasing Sephiroth around the world to stop him.

She opened her eyes to see a sight that she hadn't thought of in a long time. She was standing on the roof of the Shinra Manor watching her first friend stare off into space as he contemplated things. She always found him here on Mondays and Fridays, and lately even on Wednesdays.

"You're a troublesome girl."

"Maybe. Or maybe I just know what someone looks like when their heart has been shattered and they are still struggling." She heard her young voice reply, moving to stand beside her first friend.

"An observant troublesome girl then."

She laughed as she sat on the edge of the roof next to the man in a suit. She enjoyed coming up here and talking with him, especially since she could always make him smile when he was feeling down.

"I've never told you my name, have I?" She said, starting to swing her legs.

"No, and it would be best for you if you stopped coming around here."

"I'm Rosamond. It's a pleasure to spend such illegal time with you, Mister." She replied cheerfully, ignoring his remark entirely.

"Vincent. No mister. It makes me feel older than I am."

She laughed and turned to look at the man, a wide smile on her face and her legs swinging in the open air under the roof. He looked like her tutor in her old village, all dark short hair perfectly cut and wine-red eyes hiding his emotions, though he was much younger and was much nicer.

"You're like a rock," She said without thinking. Vincent turned his head to look at her, his eyebrow raised in question. "I mean, you show about as much emotion as a rock. It's not healthy you know."

He snorted and looked back out into the distance. She followed his gaze. He was staring out at the deeper parts of the mountain range. Her heart panged with longing. She hadn't felt this longing for such a long time.

"You don't belong here."

She sighed in fondness. Glancing out of the corner of her eye she saw Vincent watching her. He was always so spot on with everything, maybe she wasn't as careful with her emotions as he was.

"I'm not from this village, yes. What gave it away?"

"Your eyes are a vivid blue-gray, your hair is as black as the night sky, and you hold yourself with experience a five-"

"I'm eight thank you very much! I know I'm short but that's fine. I'll get bigger just you wait!"

Vincent laughed, and she smiled. She liked this man.

She reached up to pull a strand of her hair in front of her face, she had forgotten that the shadows had taken control and scarred her like this before Mr. Strife had found her. How long has it been since she had taken control and gained her gray hair? How long has it been since her world turned gray?

"You might be the first person who actually talked to me like another human since I was kicked out." Her younger self continued, cheer still in place as she turned to look at Vincent. Her head was spinning, to be seeing a memory from her youth while still able to interact with her older body was really a trip.

"Your parents kicked you out?"

"Tribe actually. Something to do with the darkness that surrounds me being an omen of death. The usual superstitions. You know how it goes."

Vincent was quite beside her, and then she realized he most likely wouldn't know what that was like, being exiled from your home because of something beyond your control, something you were cursed with. And for the first time in years, she cursed her own big mouth for saying too much.

"Do you know why they kicked you out? I mean, what caused them to think of the shadows around you to be a death omen?"

She blinked and looked over at him. Vincent had his head cocked towards her slightly, but his eyes were focused out on the mountains. She smiled and looked down at the shadows they were casting on the roof.

"It was my first time hunting with my village, a right of passage if you will. Everyone goes hunting for the first time when they turn seven. I went out with the hunting party and was taught to hunt, but if fighting didn't come naturally to me, I would never be a hunter. And women who had no place hunting were put to work in the fields or crafting things. I didn't want to craft things, so I knew I had to be a good hunter. And I was probably the child prodigy."

Vincent shifted beside her, his body turned slightly more towards her. It comforted her.

"I spent almost a year hunting with them, bringing in bountiful harvests of meat so everyone in the village would never starve, but so the wildlife around us could still thrive. It was on my eighth birthday that we ran into a nesting mother dragon and her eggs. My entire hunting party was slaughtered until only I was left, and to be honest, I was terrified. Everyone I had known was lying dead before this dragon, and then they showed up. The shadow wolves."

"Shadow wolves?"

"Wolves made of pure shadows. They reproduce, age, eat, and exist just like everything else, but they are made entirely of shadows. A pack of them saved me. Though only two wolves were left when they managed to kill the dragon."

"They kicked you out because you were saved by a pack of wolves?"

"No. They kicked me out because the remaining wolves moved into my shadow and live with me now. They attacked the chief when he tried to strike me for not dying with the rest of the hunting squad. I managed to stop them, but no one in the village wanted me around anymore, I was a danger. So they exiled me. I was wondering for almost a month before Mr. Strife and his party found me. They brought me back here and everyone has been so kind to me."

"I heard that you fought a dragon not even a week after you got here." She had done that, hadn't she?

"Chased it away. It was starving and weak. It will find prey elsewhere."

"You are a strange one, Rosamond."

"Really? Must seem that way because I like you."

She could feel the raised eyebrow, even though she was still stroking the shadows surrounding them.

"I like to think of us as friends, Vincent. And only my friends will ever know the truth about me."

She stood up and brushed the dirt off her pants.

"You are leaving already?"

"They are getting restless. They need to hunt. The wolves may live in my shadow, but they are not tamed. They listen to me when they want to. Other than that, I have no control. I'll see you around, Vincent."

As she strolled over to her way down, she turned her head to look at Vincent again. He looked happier, and that was all she ever really wanted.

"Doom and gloom don't suit you, Vincent!"

His laugh followed her as she jumped off the roof.

It was three months later that Vincent stopped showing up, that one of the residents of the manor they always sat and talked on, told her that Vincent had died when an experimental concoction went wrong and exploded.

Rosamond was shattered. Vincent was the first person to actually treat her like a person and not a wild creature. Vincent was her first friend. Vincent was dead.

For the first time in her life, she looked down at her shadow and thought to herself that maybe her village had been wrong about the shadows. Her shadows weren't the death omen, she was.

Her body was starting to hurt, her head going fuzzy, and her vision blurring. She missed Vincent. She had failed him by not being there for him when he needed her the most.

**============**

_V._

_Things over here have taken a spiral down into what is almost chaos. H is being more erratic with his research every day and is putting everyone here at risk. I'm going to confront him about toning it down a little until we can get better security in place, but I have a feeling he won't listen. So this letter is to catch you up to date before everything goes to hell around here._

_H doesn't let me around his work much and the other scientists are busy trying not to blow themselves up with chemicals, so not much change there. What has changed is that I have been meeting this young girl, who I will call R. R is a strange one. She has stories of her old village hidden deep in the mountains, one that she was exiled from because of a power she was born with. She is a wonderful young girl. You would like her a lot if you ever met._

_She told me the day she declared we were friends that she could control the shadows around her, that she has a breed of wolves called Shadow Wolves living in her shadow. They came out to meet me once. They really are quite remarkable._

_I didn't want to bring her to the attention of anyone in this place. They would hurt her in the name of science. And I know for a fact that if anyone in this place touched her they would all be dead. The wolves are protective of her._

_If anything ever happens to me, send someone to watch over her. I can only protect her from them for so long, and if the wolves hurt anyone here we both know Shinra would send soldiers out here to kill her, maybe even this entire town._

_I'm going to confront H now. I'll leave instructions to one of the staff that this letter should be sent out if something goes horribly wrong. H is more insane than anyone probably realizes._

_Your Partner._

_Vincent._

**============**

Shouts and screams greeted her when she woke up. Her limbs felt heavy like she had been drugged and her eyes were slow to open, but when they did open she saw the metal walls of a transport vehicle. Her eyes caught sight of the small redheaded girl Shelke, and she had a momentary panic when she realized Shelke was lying motionless beside her.

The sound of metal screaming grabbed her attention, only for her to look on as two men ripped the metal transport open barehanded.

The growls from the shadows alerted her to the fact that these men were dangerous.

"Zario," She managed to croak out, and then the large Shadow Wolf was attacking, ripping into the first man with the element of surprise.

She struggled to her hands and knees, fighting away whatever was making her groggy and weak by sheer force of will. She had to get up, she had to get Shelke out of here.

Zario flew past her and slammed into the wall, whining in pain before falling silent and fading back into her shadow.

"Grab the woman and girl. The woman has potential that shall be brought forth under our tutelage."

"Sir."

She had trouble keeping her eyes open, but she still stumbled to her feet, her hands twitching as the shadows around her grew darker. Whatever these men wanted she wasn't letting them get it.

The first soldier gasped as the solid shadows spiked through his body to leave him full of holes where vital organs used to be located. He was dead before the spikes ripped through his body to extend out towards the other soldiers she could see.

The double vision from the shadows was making it harder to concentrate, but she had to save Shelke, she had to protect Shelke.

She wouldn't fail again. She couldn't afford to. She wasn't going to let Shinra take another from her!

The shadows ripped across the land, turning the once plush grassland to dried dead earth, the soldiers falling as it tore through them effortlessly. She fell to her knees when the shadows rushed back to her. She had to bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming out in pain.

"So very powerful. You killed everything but what was in this truck for at least a mile."

She looked up, blood dripping down her chin. She almost didn't register the pain of almost biting her tongue clean in half, everything hurt so bad. The man in front of her was blurring, she couldn't see straight. Everything looked like a million shades of gray.

"You might even be stronger than that boy, Nero."

She swayed in place, her hand twitched, then she was screaming in pain as multiple blades pierced her body. The man was behind her now, she could feel that.

"You have so much fight in you. If only we had found you when you were younger. But that doesn't matter. We will still make you into a powerful warrior loyal to us."

She heard the shuffling of clothes, she felt her body hit the truck, she felt as warm liquid formed under her.

She gurgled a chuckle, the blood in her mouth slowly suffocating her. She never thought she would die like this. Never thought she wouldn't get to see her little brother and mother again. She never thought she would die on a job.

But she left that note behind for V because she knew deep down that she would never return again. Even if her death was far from what she thought it would end up being, she had done her best to save Shelke from Shinra.

"L-leave her al-lone."

Her voice, muffled and staggered by the blood in her mouth, was barely recognizable to her.

"L-leave Sh-Shelke alone."

She couldn't feel her body anymore, but she did feel when the foot slammed into her side and sent her into and then through the metal wall of the transport. The impact with the ground snapped her eyes open, and as she stopped rolling, she saw the carnage that was outside the truck.

Shinra troopers lay dead from multiple causes around her, Turks laying dead with them over the ground. The soldiers she had killed were nowhere to be found, only puddles of blood ever proved they were there.

She watched, too weak to do anything else, as blood gushed from the wounds that still held the swords, as the man who had kicked her out this far strolled over to her, Shelke flung over one of his shoulders. She still couldn't make out his features. Blood loss was a bitch.

"All that fight for what? You might just die before we make it back. No matter though. We got the main target. You would just be a bonus that we can live without."

She watched, eyes slowly drifting closed as the man set everything before her on fire, burning corpses and the vehicle alike. The last thing she heard before she was embraced in the darkness was the loud boom of the truck engine exploding and the gas tanks ripping apart as the fire spread throughout the truck.

**============**

"Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you could change one thing that you did in the past?"

"Not really. Why?"

"It's just… Sometimes I wonder if it was my fault that he died, ya know?"

"Were you the one who killed him, the one holding the weapon?"

"No. He died in an explosion. But sometimes I wonder if it was my fault. Maybe if I didn't force him to endure my company so much, maybe he wouldn't have had a reason to be down there that day."

"You blame yourself for his death because you think you drove him away?"

A soft sigh. The silhouette of a woman turned to look at him.

"No. I blame myself because I did what I told him I would never do. I let the Shadows run wild and almost killed everyone in that manor."

"Did you let them? Or did they take control?"

Silence. The silhouette was gone.

"We blame ourselves every day for things we can't change. Vincent would have knocked you over the head and lectured you for even thinking his death was your fault. He loved you, Rosamond. He had never talked so highly about anyone before, not even Lucrieta who he had fallen in love with. I think to him, where you saw him as a friend, he saw you as part of his family, maybe even a daughter. He would never change the events that led you both to meeting, maybe change what had caused you both to part, but he would never give you up for anything."

"But that's a bad connection to have when you're a Turk."

He chuckled and reached out beside him to ruffle the head of hair beside him.

"Which is exactly why Vincent made the best Turk. Did you know he is considered a legend in the Turks?"

"A legend?"

"Yes. I can tell you some stories about him if you want, but you have to stay silent about them. People would come after you if they found out you knew anything about Vincent."

"Vincent is my friend. I want to know how to better honor his memory. What's the craziest thing he ever did?"

He found himself laughing. He turned to look at the girl beside him, only to reel back in horror. Before him, instead of the slightly pale skin and midnight black hair of the young sixteen-year-old girl, Rosamond looked to be in her twenties, her black-hair a mangled mess that hung ragged around her, her chin covered in blood, swords sticking out of her chest, her arms burned and her legs broken and twisted. He choked on his laughter, his breath catching in his throat, and he fell backward onto his ass.

_"Is something wrong? Can't stomach seeing what you caused, V?"_

He tried to say something, anything, but nothing came out. He was on the ground afraid of the girl he had come to see as a best friend.

_"Can't speak to the one you failed to notify? You were in town that day V. I know you knew what was after that girl. Didn't care to tell me, the one you adored as an honorary Turk outside of Shira, about the monsters Shinra were sending out to get her?"_

He couldn't breathe, her gaze was soft and innocent, but her words cut like blades. He was suffocating and dying.

**_"Do you even care that I'm dead because of you?!"_ **

The twisted, broken, and bleeding form of his friend lunged at him.

He jolted awake screaming.

When he managed to calm himself down, he looked around and sighed. He had fallen asleep in his office on the sofa again. Maybe he should decorate it. In honor of his two fallen friends.

He sighed again and flopped back down onto the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry Rosamond. I should have stopped you from taking that job."

Hours later, as the floor he worked on filled with the office workers, he found himself weakly moving from his sofa to his desk. His apprentice would be in soon with his coffee, as was their normal routine, and he had to appear as if he was at least working.

Maybe working would allow him to deal with this loss until he no longer had nightmares.

All because of that damn note that was delivered to his office last week.

**============**

She didn't know how long it had been since she found herself in this place. She had no way of knowing what time it even was. People came and went very rarely, and the constant pain in her body was horrible.

Sometimes she could pick out voices praising her body for being able to take what seemed like large does of some chemical makeup, but she could never hear properly or long enough to understand what was happening around her.

Zario was silent and she couldn't feel him around her or in her shadow. Though somewhere in her mind that made sense, she was supposed to be dead after all, and Zario would never keep himself attached to a dead body's shadow.

Except she was slowly but surely gaining consciousness and she could feel the pain more and more, though it was getting dimmer. She could hear the roaring of something all around her, she could feel the world around her changing and shifting, and with the ease of experience, she reached out to the shadows that filled the room she was in. She needed answers.

'Revolt.'

'Savior.'

'Revolution.'

"Yes you damn mutt," Came the sudden snappy voice from in front of her body. "I'm freeing her, calm down."

She pulled herself from the shadows and focused on her surroundings. Something was moving against her, she was getting colder, the pain was starting to come back. She gasped as her body violently rejected whatever was happening around her, her hands and arms slamming into cold hard glass. She could smell fresh blood.

"Shit! Calm down! You're only going to hurt yourself more!"

Arms, warm arms were wrapping around her. Leather, something smelled like leather, well worn, and loved leather. Apples, the man holding her and carefully pulling what she could numbly feel as needles out of her arms, smelled like apples.

The soft rumble from her side and the solid nose pushing against her limp hand had her hissing slightly. The hand may have been limp, but it still hurt like hell.

A hand tilted her head to the side, and a finger was pushing her eyelid up. The bright light made her keep them closed though. She heard a sigh from above her, then her back was against a metal floor, her eyes carefully being coaxed open again. This time the light didn't burn her eyes.

Though once she had blinked the world into focus again, she found herself in a room devoid of all light, except for the glow from the blue eyes watching her from a face twisted in impatience. The blue of his eyes was the first spot of color she had seen in such a long time, they reminded her of the sky before her world was filled with gray.

"Your eyes are glowing, no doubt because of the mako you were just floating in and the things they were pumping you full of. You're lucky the mutt found me while I was making my way out. You would have been doomed if I didn't come around and free you."

Her throat hurt too much to even think about talking. But this man thought too highly of himself. She was dead, why would she need to be saved from the hell she herself had created with her actions before her death? She should be dead. She failed another and doomed them to eternal suffering and death.

"We need to leave quickly before those fools come looking for me again. The morons thinking I'll help them kill the world."

"Sh-Shelke." She groaned out, trying to move her limbs. It was so easy before, why did she feel as if she was encased in lead now?

"If that's the name of someone you came down here with, forget about them. They are either broken and a part of this insane system as a mindless slave, or dead, which I would be wishing for your friend."

She couldn't say another word, she couldn't struggle from the man's arms, all she could do was lay limp and let him do whatever he wanted with her.

She was dead after all. That was the only explanation of the never-ending white steel walls around them, the man with red hair, a black wing folded behind him, and Zario trotting along beside them.

The last thing she thought before she closed her eyes and passed out was that the red leather looked good on the strange man that smelled like apples and fire. That and maybe color was finally returning to her world.

**============**

_December 31, 1999_

_Cloud,_

_You know, I don't think I ever wrote you a letter you never gave me hate for, but I just wanted this to be a special letter, one you could hold close no matter what. And I think that's what makes this so hard for me. Because you were never happy with just words, you always wanted action. You remind me a lot of a friend I had made in Nibelheim two years before you were born. He was also a hard-head who liked action more than words, but his profession had him using more words than actions. I don't think I ever told you about the lonely man who sat on top of Shinra Manor, his gaze broken and sad._

_I think I'll tell you now though._

_He was a wonderful man, and I'm proud to call him my friend. I just wish he was around now so that you could have met him as well. He holds a lot of sadness in his life, and even though I was only eight when I met him, I could tell it was emotional heartbreak. Something life-changing was messing with his heart and head. I never pressed him for information, never tried to make him open up to me about his problems. He didn't need that, he needed someone to sit by and provide just the support that another human could with your presence alone._

_Don't tell mom, but he was the first person I actually loved. Not romantically mind you, but I think he had taken the place in my heart as a father figure, not to say that dad wasn't a great person like mom always says, it's just, the people of Nibelheim treated me like I was a wild child, ready to kill everyone around me even though mom and dad took me in. It wasn't until I lost him, my first actual friend, that the people in town started to see me as a person, as a human instead of a monster._

_Because monsters don't cry and sob for those they have lost, they don't make those attachments and let humans see. Though the worst kind of monster is those in human skin because they have no humanity left to speak of. I remember the first time I met a real monster in human skin, it made my skin crawl, and if Zario wasn't around, I don't think I would have survived when he came at me with the intent to kill._

_SOLDIER is going to teach you so much more than you think. You will learn how to kill people, Cloud, and kill people you will, innocent or not. You will do what you're ordered to do, and all your orders are going to be twisted so it seems like you're always doing things for the greater good, but Shinra isn't the greater good. Shinra isn't doing any good in the world when they send you off to kill people. When you reach SOLDIER as you're going to do, rise through the ranks until you can pick and choose what missions you can do, and then only do monster-killing ones. No one on Shinra's hit list deserves death._

_Trust me on this Cloud. Your life will be much easier if you can keep your hands clean of as much human blood as possible. Don't follow in my footsteps. Don't turn to killing people for money. And don't tell Mom I told you this._

_I love you Cloud, but I don't think I ever want you to look up to me again. I am not a good role model. I am not a good person to look up to. I love you so much. Don't follow in my footsteps, please. Mom would be very disappointed if she found out both her kids had grown up to be murders._

_I love you, Cloud. I always will. So stay strong for me okay? Stay strong and as pure as you can._

_Your older sister,_

_Rosamond_


	3. You must lose a friend before you can gain one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! This story is not being abandoned for those of you who are reading it, it's just going to take some time to actually get chapters out now. This goes for all my other stories as well.  
> My workplace has opened again and I have been working open to close every day of the week since it opened on Saturday May 16, 2020. My bosses are trying to work out a schedule that will allow us to all work easier and not have me working open to close every day since I am the only employee left working after the Quarantine started. This being said, I do have a few hours in the morning from when I wake up to when I have to get ready for work, as well as having a few hours before I crash at night when I get home, it leaves me getting like 3-4 hours of sleep each night, but I do try to get work done on the different story chapters in the small-time i have allowed before I can't function anymore. but not every night and morning is spent writing since I can only write when I have inspiration and sometimes my brain is still to fogged to write before work or i am too brain dead when I get home to do anything more than just eat dinner and then go to bed.  
> That being said, I don't know if I announced this anywhere or not, but I do have my new computer and it's amazing, got it the first week of May for those who are aware that I was getting one. My younger brother also managed to finally get a PS2 emulator to work on my computer and I got FFVII Dirge Of Cerberus working so I can play the game at long last, so that's also going to cut into writing time, since I need to play the game to understand what's happening and the characters personalities.  
> I want to thank you all for your patience and understanding and I ask that you all continue to be supportive as the story continues over time and until I can get a better schedule that isn't slowly killing me and making me sleep all the time.

Deep under the metal tower that towered over everything else but higher than that hell that had hurt his packmate, Zario slept at his packmate's side hidden in the shadows to defend her should anyone arrive while she was recovering. If he wasn't sleeping in the shadows, he was laying at the base of the cylinder that the red-clothed, apple and smoke smelling man had placed her inside of before vanishing back down into the depths of the metal tower once more. He hated how the liquid inside was green and glowing, he hated its smell and how it pulsed as if alive. He hated how everything in the room was either covered in shadows or green light.

But what he hated more, was that for the past fifteen days he could hear the planets screaming, and as it screamed more and more, he watched as his packmate twisted and silently screamed in agony, her mind far too gone for her to fight off the connection she had because of those disgusting humans in white clothes. He hated that he couldn't do anything for her. He couldn't break the tank, he himself was too weak to free her. That left only one thing left to do.

Do as the planet screamed to silence it enough for his packmate to recover in peace.

This is what led to him where he was now, watching from the shadows as a man dressed in a blood-red cloak with golden shoes and a golden claw directed people into leaving their homes and getting to safety as a ball of fire slowly got bigger in the sky. He wasn't stupid, he knew his kind were seen as monsters and he would be seen as an enemy by the man if he saw him, but something kept him following the strange man he had found until he heard the cries of fear through the shadows.

He tilted his head to listen closer, it sounded young and male, but also like an even younger female or two. He let the shadows guide him further towards the metal tower instead of away from it to find the source of the cries. And find the source he did.

Five children were curled together hidden inside a building that looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time, the walls collapsing and the roof caving in while dust coated everything but where the children had been trotting around. The small pack of children were scared, three of the youngsters were crying while one of the older ones were trying to calm them down, the last one watching for signs of anything around them. He made himself known by walking through the door and sitting down to show he meant no harm to them.

The two older children stood and got between him and the younger ones, finally reaching the light so he could see them properly. He growled lowly at the dirty ripped rags, skin pulled taut over bones, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the sickening smell of illness coming from them all. These children were worse than he thought. And they were ready to fight him to the death to protect the youngsters who were probably only slightly better off than the older ones.

He did the first thing that came to mind.

He laid down and lazily wagged his tail while watching them. He knew just what he looked like, laying down in a patch of light coming from a hole in the roof. A pure black wolf, twice the size of a large dog and up to the shoulders of his packmate, wagging its tail and not attacking. It was both cute and confusing, it also never failed to get scared children to run to him and seek protection. He didn't flinch as the first two small bodies clung to his body, he only lifted his head and nuzzled them closer to his warmth, all while watching the other three.

The youngest girl, clinging to his neck, sniffling with tears, spoke up to the other three, her voice too broken up and the language not what he was familiar with. But he relaxed when the others came over to him. No one could resist the cute warm wolf that was laying before them unless they didn't have a heart.

Once they had all calmed down and were relaxing despite the situation outside their shelter, he slowly stood, making sure that he wasn't moving too fast and startling them into freaking out again. He nuzzled the little girls again, gave a head bump to the two boys, and then rested his nose on the oldest girl's forehead, before turning and making his way towards the door, then looked back at them.

The smart children followed him after a brief hesitation.

He was careful in the paths that they took, he knew he had to get them to the other humans so they could be taken to safety, but at the same time he had a feeling that if any human but the man in red saw him, it wouldn't matter if he had the young pack around him, he would be shot at and they would get hurt. So he charted his path properly, avoiding armed humans and any monsters that were running around in the chaos, all while following his nose and the direction of the shadows to get back to the man he had been watching before.

When he found the man again with the children, he was with a group of men who all had guns that they were holding at the ready. He had seen that look too much to think that any sudden movement or appearance by him or the children wouldn't result in anything but death. But he had to get their attention so they could take the young pack safely.

So he howled, low and short, enough to state he was there, but also short enough to show he meant no harm. When he looked back at the group, he was staring right into vivid red eyes, eyes that had him backing up slightly in fear.

He nudged the first child out into view, carefully and slowly, watching as the man's red eyes flickered to the child and then back to him. A shifting of the cloak around the man, and then he was coming closer, his strides purposeful but also non-threatening.

He found himself relaxing as the man approached, carefully pushing more of the children before him. When the man was close enough, the oldest girl said something to the man and he replied in kind, then motioned for someone to come to them from the group he had just left. He had thought that the person he would call forth would be one of the people with a gun, but instead, it was a young girl, older than the children he had just brought to them, but young nonetheless. She had some kind of green shirt thing and tan shorts with what was probably armor of some kind on her left arm and leg. He didn't understand her outfit. He didn't even try.

"What's up, Vince?" The female asked.

The man replied in that strange unknown language, the female brightening and then leaning down to talk to the children in the same language. He watched as they relaxed and then clung to the female, the young pack shaking and babbling in that foreign language.

"They are thanking her," came the deep voice as the man moved to stand by his side. "As I should be thanking you. You are clearly more intelligent than other monsters, having saved children and then bringing them to us. Do you understand me?"

He tilted his head to look up at the man, then sat down and watched the kids, his tail wagging slowly behind him as they watched them walk towards the group that was waiting and ready to help them already. He nodded his head.

"Do you have a name?" Came the next question, only after the female turned to give a thumbs up to the man and then she was gone into the flurry of activity as the children were tended to and she watched over them.

He growled softly and nodded. He had once known how to spell his name out in the dirt for people, but he hadn't needed that particular set of skills for almost seven years now. He would have to make sure his packmate helped him relearn when she was free.

"Do you have a master?" Came the next question from the man.

He felt rage at the question, standing back up and facing him, his growls were loud and threatening. No one enslaved him, not even his packmate tried to enslave him. All those that tried had met their ends to his fangs and his packmates blades.

The man only nodded at his very threatening answer to his question. "So you made a pact with a human then," his growls got louder. "A pack bond, perhaps?"

His growls stopped and he blinked. The man never once seemed threatened by him, he just seemed intrigued by him. It was almost like those white men but reminded him more of the man his packmate called V. The man watched him calmly, his arms folded over his chest, leaning against the wall next to him. Just like V had the first time they had met.

He nodded slowly and sat back down, then laid down to look back at the mass of humans. He needed to find a way to get this man or one of his companions to follow him back to his packmate. Maybe they could help her recover from what those white men did to her.

"Where is your pack?" The man in red was kneeling before him, head tilted, his posture trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. He appreciated the man's efforts.

He raised to show the man, to insist the man follow him, except everything around them started to rumble and the ball of fire in the sky was closer, crushing the metal tower.

He howled and tried to run towards the tower, but the man stopped him. He fought as best as he could until he could no longer keep his form in the burning light. He hid in the only shadow he had available to him, the shadow under the man's cloak. His sad howls rang through the crumbling burning city as the tower fell under the pressure.

He didn't know how to live without his packmate, he didn't know life without her. His sorrow rang even after the ball of fire had been pushed away and destroyed. His cries followed the night and day, his only companion now the man in red who spent his time caring for him and reteaching him everything he once knew in regards to humans and the language.

But not once, even as he found a new member for his pack in the red-cloaked man, did he ever once stop crying in sorrow in his heart. His cries rang clear and loud in his heart and didn't show any signs of stopping.

**============**

_"You seem sad today, Rosamond."_

_He lifted his head to look at the man who had just entered the building. The man was wearing a black tank top, his suit jacket slung over his metal arm, he had a rare smile on his scarred face as he approached the counter to lean against it._

_"Guess I'm still showing too much emotion again aren't I?"_

_His packmate was leaning back in her chair, her dull silver eyes on the ceiling. He nuzzled against her barefoot, huffing slightly as she shifted in her chair so her black skirt would cover her legs as she drew them up to her chest, her white tank top hanging loosely from her body where it once was a tight fit. He was worried._

_"You've lost weight you can't afford to lose again."_

_"And you've gained a metal arm, V."_

_"Tell me what's wrong."_

_"You wouldn't understand."_

_"Try me."_

_His packmate was glaring at V now, her eyes showing something other than the dead dull they had been for the past month. He whined his sorrow softly._

_His packmate jerked and looked down at him as if seeing him for the first time as if she wasn't aware he had been walking by her side and not in her shadow the entire time._

_"Zario? When?"_

_"He has been by your side since you started withdrawing from the world a month ago."_

_"How?"_

_"Rosamond, do you even realize how much you mean to the people of this small town that isn't even on the map?"_

_His packmate looked at V like he had grown multiple heads._

_"Your business keeps them safe, your talents make sure everyone is protected when you're in town, and even when you're not. They call you their guardian. And they know I am your friend, even if I am a Turk, and when you start showing signs of being unwell and don't take proper care of yourself, I will get informed by the town."_

_"What is it that you want, Veld?"_

_"Your brother has applied to be a SOLDIER."_

_His packmate fell silent, staring at Veld like he had grown another head._

_"Impossible. He's too young and Mom would never let him leave the village to go to Midgar until he was older and stronger."_

_"And if I told you that I had visited Nibelheim and took his information so that he could become a SOLDIER?"_

_"I would have to kill you so that information never reached Shinra."_

_The air hung heavy filled with tension so thick he could taste it on his fur. His packmate had blanked her expression, her hand drifting closer to the blade she kept by her counter for emergencies. V watched her closely._

_"He will go regardless if I tell or not, and you know it. You Strife's are stubborn little things."_

_"Were not things."_

_"Of course not. You both prove that when you act more human than the machines I always mistake you for."_

_He tilted his head and tried to listen closely to what V was muttering under his breath, but it proved useless. He didn't know enough to figure it out._

_"MY BROTHER DID WHAT?!"_

_It seems his packmate had heard or was able to piece it together._

_"I regret to inform you that it is true. All the SOLDIERs and Turks in the area will have reported it to Shinra long before I make it to the tower."_

_His packmate smiled and huffed in either relief, exasperation, or another emotion that he hadn't gotten the grasp of. Surely whatever little Cloud had done couldn't have been that bad if she was smiling._

_"Can't believe he actually managed to kill that old dragon. Was anyone hurt that you were able to learn about?"_

_"Besides the few houses that were set on fire when the dragon attacked, everyone else was able to escape to a safer distance, except your brother who took a fallen SOLDIER's sword and fought the dragon. He saved a lot of lives that day."_

_"But he's so young! How could he have managed that? He's only…"_

_He tilted his head to rub against his packmate and then picked up a calendar for her to look at._

_"So today is July twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-nine, Cloud's birthday is… August eleventh, he was born in the year… nineteen eighty-six, so he would be… twelve right now."_

_He stood to rest his head on his packmate's lap, her hand coming down to scratch behind his ears absentmindedly. He was preparing for the freak out that was about to happen._

_"Wait… My little brother, little baby Cloud that can't even hurt a fly. My sweetheart of a little baby brother Cloud, killed a dragon that came and attacked the town in the place of the SOLDIERs that couldn't kill the damn thing? At the age of twelve?!"_

_"Younger than I expected. Your brother will do quite well in SOLDIER when he joins."_

_"MY BROTHER IS NOT GOING TO JOIN SOLDER! I WILL NOT LET HIM!"_

_V laughed as he turned and walked towards the door, pulling his suit jacket back on. He stopped with his hand on the nob, his entire demeanor changing. Zario was instantly on alert, his packmate jolting straighter, her weapon in her hand._

_"You won't be able to stop your brother from joining SOLDIER if you can't even control the shadows that are cultivating and growing inside of you. Your eyes are already changing, and soon, if you fall to the shadow's they will be full black. You're not the first person I've known to have the curse of the shadows, but you're the only one I know that has lived past the age of fifteen. Don't give in to the shadows. If I have to bury another friend that I failed to save, then I don't know how I would keep going."_

_Silence, but his packmate's hand was slowly starting to glide in soft strokes against his back._

_"I won't fall to the shadows. If I do, it's my fault, not yours Veld. Just like Vincent's death isn't either of our faults. You may have placed him at the manor, but you weren't the one who killed him with the explosion. Nor was I. Thank you, V."_

**============**

The shadows swirled around the room in a deadly dance, lashing out and cutting those who tried to approach the sealed tank in the middle of the forgotten lab. Many troopers died and were swallowed by the shadows before a single young girl stepped into the room, ignoring the cries from her fellow allies, the cries that 'she has a job to do, and can't afford to die before completing her mission for Weiss.'

But the red-haired girl ignored them and their shouts and demands. She ignored the bodies still dropping and being absorbed into the shadows. She ignored everything but the woman in the tank in the middle of the room, the draw towards this soldier memorizing.

She only stopped when her hand hit the cold glass of the tank and the shadows roared up behind her, locking them both in a shadowy egg. The shadows wisped around her leg, licking up them as flames would. Slowly, the emotions she had locked away were being brought back.

"Rosamond," She whispered, her eyes watering with unshed tears as she took in the woman that was once fair-skinned with dark blonde hair. Now Rosamond, her once guardian, had hair black as the void and skin pure white. "What did they do to you?"

The woman in the tank shifted slightly, her eyes opening. She gasped sharply as she took that the once dark silver eyes that held a fondness for her, were now completely black. No, it wasn't that her eyes had changed to black, it looked more like shadows lived over her eyes now, shifting and moving.

"I'm Shelke," She whispered. "Do you remember me?"

She didn't scream as the shadows surged around her and surrounded her, nor did she flinch, but she did close her eyes tightly. It was too dark, her mind was being bombarded with so many emotions all at once.

Glass shattered from in front of her, and even though she was prepared for the shards to hit her, none of them did. What did hit her though was the body that had fallen into a kneeling pose before her, arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer to a body wet with mako and warm to embrace.

"Shelke," Rosamond whispered, voice rough with disuse but still holding all that fond emotion for her. "Little Shelke, We remember you."

Shelke trembled, her arms curling around Rosamond's body, her head falling into her shoulder.

"We are back now, Shelke," Rosamond continued, her voice stronger. "And We will never let harm come to you again. Cry, child. These shadows will protect you from those that will hurt you for having emotions."

"I'm sixteen now," Shelke sniffled, confusion taking over her mind as her body shook with sobs. "W-why am I crying?"

"Because We have your emotions in the shadows, and nothing will ever take them from us, not until you are ready to feel human again. So cry. Cry and feel human and safe, feel sadness and relief, feel what you haven't in so long in the safety of the shadows and our arms, and when you are ready, we can both go back to being emotionless robots."

And she cried, she cried for everything that had been done to her and Rosamond, she cried because she couldn't stand to feel nothing anymore and Rosamond was giving her an escape. She cried because she had felt so alone and lost, so forgotten and hopeless, because no one was coming to save her, but her savior had been taken and twisted as she had twisted into being a Deepground soldier.

The only difference between them is that while Shelke had a position with the Tsviets, Rosamond was deemed too volatile and uncontrollable, her loyalty not something they could control with the chips, but something that had to be earned.

And that is how when the shadow's finally calmed and dispersed, retreating into Rosamond's shadow as she stood behind Shelke, that Shelke had gained a shadow, a shadow much more powerful than everyone else in Deepground and loyal only to her.

A shadow so twisted by the people who created Deepground, that instead of a chip connecting her to Shelke, the new controller and regulator of all of Deepground, it was the shadows, the shadows that had taken Shelke's emotions and hidden them where she wouldn't even touch them, but she could have access to them until she was ready to have her emotions back and sever the bond between her and the shadows that now guard her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts about this story in the comments! I really enjoy reading comments and I like knowing how people think and react to the story I am crafting. It also helps make the read easier if I get reader feedback about spelling errors or grammar mistakes and where they are so I can go back and fix them unless they are supposed to be there (A person's style of writing and talking being the examples). I also helps if people bring up places where things don't make sense or seem to be really jumpy, even for the chapters where time jumps are everywhere.  
> Thank you all and I hope all are enjoying the story!


	4. Revisiting the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosamond starts to tell her niece her life story as a bedtime story. Then reflects on her past with questions she has no answers to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ!!!!
> 
> This is not the next chapter in the story. This is me making an attempt to figure out a better way to write this story so that inspiration for it flows again now that I have days off of work again! I want your honest opinion on if you think this chapter format flows. I really want to start working on this story again, but I rushed it too fast for even the characters to keep up with and now everyone is lost and confused about what is supposed to happen next, so I figured I would try to find the place again by rewriting it, and then this happened.
> 
> Please let me know in the comments below exactly what you think about this new format. If you like it I will rewrite the story in this new format, but if you don't I will try to find a different way to rewrite the story to make it better.
> 
> Thank you all for your time. Please enjoy.

“Aunty Rosamond? Can you tell me a bedtime story?” A small silver-haired female asked, her bright blue eyes filled with silent pleas.

“What about your book that you read before bed? Do you find that boring?” She asked, her gray eyes watching her niece with gentle fondness. “Or did your mother forget to pack your bedtime book?”

“Mama forgot my book, again,” the silverette replied, then tried to copy her mother’s stern look and voice. “A very important delivery came up and I have to go, pack only the essentials for a trip to my sisters for the week it will take me.”

“And your mother didn’t think your reading book was essential?”

“No! I just forgot to pack it. Mama had to pack his own bags and make sure he had everything. I’m five now and capable of doing things on my own,” She paused, her head tilting down and her eyes slowly filling with a shyness Rosamond hadn’t seen since she first met her niece. “Or that’s what Daddy says. He’s proud that I can be independent of them for everything but protection.”

Rosamond chuckled softly and started to walk towards her niece’s room in her house. “Alright. I’ll have words with your mother when he gets back to bring you home, until then, do you want me to find a book to read you or do you want an adventure from one of your Aunts or Uncles?”

The small girl squealed and dashed ahead of her, and by the time she had reached her niece’s room, the small girl was already in bed and curled around her large black Chocobo plushie. Though her clothes were thrown hazardously throughout her room as if she had changed into her pajamas on her way to the bed and didn’t bother picking any of them up. Rosamond couldn’t even get mad when she looked at the pure joy on her niece’s face, one that looked so much like her brother when he was younger.

“Alright,” She started as she bent to clean up the clothes on the floor. “Which Aunt or Uncle do you want to hear an adventure from?” Never say working at Seventh Heaven when not out monster hunting didn’t get you good tales from the AVALANCHE crew when they were all around.

“Can you tell me one of your adventures, Aunty Rosamond?”

She stopped by the hamper and dropped the clothes into it before moving to the bed, humming in thought. “I don’t think I have any adventures to tell of. My life was pretty uneventful.”

“Then tell me your life story!” The silverette happily exclaimed. “Yours is the only one I don’t know.”

Rosamond looked down at her niece, so pure and happy, so beautiful and strong. Did she want to scare her niece with her life story? But her niece knew of every member of AVALANCHE’s life story, even her father’s, and Rosamond’s life story didn’t even compare to Vincent’s story.

“Okay,” She eventually agreed. “But on one condition. If things get too bad for you, you tell me to stop and we’ll find another story, okay?”

“Yes Ma’am!” Came the very enthusiastic reply.

“Alright, where to start?” Rosamond hummed while thinking back on her life, her hand running soothing strokes down her niece’s arm as she shifted to lay beside her. “I guess I should start at the beginning. I was born in the year 1976 to a small village hidden in the Nibel Mountains and unknown to the world. Nothing special about the weather or the day to indicate any special abilities in me or around me, as was the belief of that small village.”

“I lived seven years of my life as just another village child; my parents and the elders sizing me and the other children up to figure out who should be married with who to produce stronger offspring. Until of course I turned the age of seven and went on my first hunting trip with an experienced member of the tribe. I brought back food for the village to eat for a week, the advanced hunter encouraging and praising, saying I followed his instructions and took to hunting like a fish in the water. It was then that I was starting to be matched with other hunters, even those older than me.”

“That’s disgusting,” Her niece interrupted her, shifting to lay closer to Rosamond, the Black Chocobo plushie clutched to her chest. “I wouldn’t want to marry old men.”

Rosamond laughed. “Neither did I when I found out later just how wrong that tradition was. But in that village, we did as the elders and our parents said, then when we were adults we only listened to the elders. The women were married before the age of fourteen to whoever the elders chose and then they were forever under the command of their husbands, forced to do whatever their husband wanted them to as long as it never threatened the existence of the village. So I had no choice in the matter, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that at the time. It was how I was raised.”

“But Mama and Daddy didn’t get married until Mama was twenty-eight.”

“That’s because they don’t follow the same traditions as the village I was born,” She explained gently. “Your parents were born in Nibelheim, a town that the world knew about, or was at least important enough to be put onto maps. They didn’t have that tradition that the village I was born in did. That and your parents went through a lot of horrible things together that drove a deep wedge between them that they had to overcome before they finally got together and tied the knot. But that’s not important right now, what is important is that when you’re ready to find love, you can choose to be with whoever you want and no one will force anything on you.”

Her niece frowned slightly while she took a moment to think that over, then smiled and looked back up at her. “Okay! You can continue the story now. I’ll try not to interrupt again.”

“Alright, but if you don’t understand feel free to interrupt, I don’t want to confuse you and make you miss parts of the story, okay?” She waited until she got a nod and then smiled. Her niece was so precious. “Alright, back to the story then. I hunted for the tribe once a week leaving the rest of my days helping out around the village and learning how to do many things, most of which I have forgotten how to do because they were so boring.”

“When I turned eight, a group of hunters wanted to take me on a trip to kill a dragon that had been upsetting the balance in the woods around us, the elders eagerly agreed and sent me off with the group. It took us a few days to find the dragon we were looking for, only to find out the dragon was a nesting mother and she needed the kills to regain her energy and to feed her children who were close to hatching. Knowing what we now knew about the dragon, we turned to leave it alone, they would move on when the baby dragons were strong enough to fly so we did not need to kill the mother and destroy her eggs. Except one of the hunters tripped over a rock sending him sprawling to the ground with a shout, and the rock flew towards the mother and her eggs. It would have still been possible for us to have escaped the mother dragon if the hunter had just fallen, we just would have run away and because we had shown no interest in the mother and her eggs she wouldn’t follow us, but because the rock flew towards them, she saw us as enemies and came to kill us all.”

“That was the day I no longer belonged to the village, all because I had survived the mother's attack and returned alive empty-handed. See, my village had this rule in place that if a hunting party returned empty-handed after telling the elders they would go out to get something, they were seen as distrustful and would be exiled unless they had a good reason to come back empty-handed. If the entire hunting party returned and we told the elders the dragon was a mother nesting with her eggs and was no harm to the village and that they would be gone in a month, we would have still been part of the village. That wasn’t the case as I returned to the village alone, empty-handed, and injured with cuts and bruises. Even telling the elder the truth about what had happened wouldn’t save me, it would just get me killed on the spot.”

“How did you survive?” Her niece asked, her eyes wide with wonder. “Even Mama has trouble fighting dragons alone.”

“I was saved by a pack of shadow wolves,” she said, her free hand moving to stroke the shadows dancing on the walls. “They fought until I could drag myself far enough away to escape the wrath of the mother dragon, but only two wolves survived the fight, and they imprinted themselves on me and slept in my shadow to regain their strength. They became my companions after that, living in my shadow and helping me survive after being exiled from the village. Though I never told the elders that I had the wolves in my shadow, they were creatures of the night and anything that was contributed to the night was a thing of death. If they had found out about the wolves, I wouldn’t be alive today.”

“A month or two later, I was found by a hunting party from Nibelhiem, and they took me back to the town and I was taken in by a couple known as the Strifes. I had a bed to sleep in, warm food to eat, a place to call my own, and two loving parents who had adopted me. My life should have been getting better, but everyone in that town danced around me like I was a wild child and was ready to rip them all apart and kill them at any moment if they did something wrong.”

“Only one man ever treated me like another person, another human being. He was a wonderful man, but he was so troubled by what was happening in the mansion he was protecting. Even though he kept his black hair short, clean, and styled in the best professional look he could, even if his suit was always clean with not a wrinkle on it, his face was a stone block that was cracking and his eyes were like open books to his heart and soul. Though he wasn’t an easy man to read, mainly because whenever he realized you were trying to read him, he closed up tighter than your dad. At first, it was just a passing curiosity, to climb the manor and stare off into the mountain range next to him, seeing if my presence would make him crack and talk about what was making him sad. Then it was about making him happy. Even if I could never get him to smile outside of our conversations, as long as that gloom and doom that surrounded him eased slightly because of our banter and my attempts to make him feel better, that was enough for me.”

============

_She was standing on the roof of the Shinra Manor watching her friend stare off into space as he contemplated things. She always found him here on Mondays and Fridays, and lately even on Wednesdays._

_"You're a troublesome girl." He said just loud enough that she could hear him. She smiled._

_"Maybe. Or maybe I just know what someone looks like when their heart has been shattered and they are still struggling." She said, moving quickly and softly over to his side._

_"An observant troublesome girl then." He sighed out._

_She laughed as she sat on the edge of the roof next to the man in the suit, and as always it was well kept and clean, even up here where no one bothered to clean it of the moss and growths that were starting to cover the roof completely. She enjoyed coming up here and talking with him, especially since she could always make him smile when he was feeling down._

_"I've never told you my name, have I?" She said, starting to swing her legs._

_"No, and it would be best for you if you stopped coming around here." He replied, his voice holding hints of curiosity but was mostly a harsh warning._

_"I'm Rosamond. It's a pleasure to spend such illegal time with you, Mister." She replied cheerfully, ignoring his remark entirely._

_"Vincent. No mister. It makes me feel older than I am."_

_She laughed and turned to look at the man named Vincent, a wide smile on her face and her legs swinging in the open air under the roof. He looked like her tutor in her old village, all dark short hair perfectly cut and wine-red eyes hiding his emotions, though he was much younger and was much nicer._

_"You're like a rock," She said without thinking. Vincent turned his head to look at her, his eyebrow raised in question. "I mean, you show about as much emotion as a rock. It's not healthy you know."_

_He snorted and looked back out into the distance. She followed his gaze. He was staring out at the deeper parts of the mountain range. Her heart panged with longing. She hadn't felt this longing for such a long time._

_"You don't belong here."_

_She sighed in fondness. Glancing out of the corner of her eye she saw Vincent watching her. He was always so spot on with everything, maybe she wasn't as careful with her emotions as he was._

_"I'm not from this village, yes. What gave it away?" She asked, smiling at him again even if she wasn’t actually happy._

_"Your eyes are a vivid blue-gray, your hair is as black as the night sky, and you hold yourself with experience a five-"_

_"I'm eight thank you very much! I know I'm short but that's fine. I'll get bigger just you wait!"_

_Vincent laughed, and she smiled. She liked this man._

_She reached up to pull a strand of her hair in front of her face, she had forgotten that the shadows had taken control and scarred her like this before Mr. Strife had found her. How long has it been since she had taken control and gained her gray hair? How long has it been since her world turned gray?_

_"You might be the first person who actually talked to me like another human since I was kicked out." She continued, her false cheer still in place as she turned to look at Vincent. Her head was spinning, bad memories were starting to resurface and she didn’t want to scare Vincent. No one needed to see when the shadows took control of her emotions._

_"Your parents kicked you out?" Vincent asked, looking away from her again._

_"Tribe actually. Something to do with the darkness that surrounds me is an omen of death. The usual superstitions. You know how it goes."_

_Vincent was quite beside her, and then she realized he most likely wouldn't know what that was like, being exiled from your home because of something beyond your control, something you were cursed with. And for the first time in her life, she cursed her own big mouth for saying too much._

_"Do you know why they kicked you out? I mean, what caused them to think of the shadows around you to be a death omen?"_

_She blinked and looked over at him. Vincent had his head cocked towards her slightly, but his eyes were focused out on the mountains. She smiled and looked down at the shadows they were casting on the roof._

_"It was my first time hunting with my village, a right of passage if you will. Everyone goes hunting for the first time when they turn seven. I went out with the hunting party and was taught to hunt, but if fighting didn't come naturally to me, I would never be a hunter. And women who had no place hunting were put to work in the fields or crafting things. I didn't want to craft things, so I knew I had to be a good hunter. And I was probably the child prodigy."_

_Vincent shifted beside her, his body turned slightly more towards her. It comforted her. Even if he didn’t know that such a simple motion would do so. How long had it been since she had been held or even shown human comfort? She couldn’t remember._

_"I spent almost a year hunting with them, bringing in bountiful harvests of meat so everyone in the village would never starve, but so the wildlife around us could still thrive. It was on my eighth birthday that we ran into a nesting mother dragon and her eggs. My entire hunting party was slaughtered until only I was left, and to be honest, I was terrified. Everyone I had known was lying dead before this dragon, and then they showed up. The shadow wolves."_

_"Shadow wolves?"_

_"Wolves made of pure shadows. They reproduce, age, eat, and exist just like everything else, but they are made entirely of shadows. A pack of them saved me. Though only two wolves were left when they managed to kill the dragon."_

_"They kicked you out because you were saved by a pack of wolves?"_

_"No. They kicked me out because the remaining wolves moved into my shadow and live with me now. They attacked the chief when he tried to strike me for not dying with the rest of the hunting squad. I managed to stop them, but no one in the village wanted me around anymore, I was a danger. So they exiled me. I was wondering for almost a month before Mr. Strife and his party found me. They brought me back here and everyone has been so kind to me."_

_"I heard that you fought a dragon not even a week after you got here." She had done that, hadn't she? She had forgotten. Funny how she had forgotten that but remembered the worst day of her life._

_"Chased it away. It was starving and weak. It will find prey elsewhere."_

_"You are a strange one, Rosamond."_

_"Really? Must seem that way because I like you."_

_She could feel the raised eyebrow, even though she was still stroking the shadows surrounding them and not looking at him. She found comfort in the motion of stroking the shadows and liked to believe she was petting the wolves that had become her family._

_"I like to think of us as friends, Vincent. And only my friends will ever know the truth about me."_

_She stood up and brushed the dirt and moss off her pants._

_"You are leaving already?" Vincent asked, his voice filled with concern and questions._

_"They are getting restless. They need to hunt. The wolves may live in my shadow, but they are not tamed. They listen to me when they want to. Other than that, I have no control. I'll see you around, Vincent."_

_As she strolled over to her way down, she turned her head to look at Vincent again. He looked happier, and that was all she ever really wanted._

_"Doom and gloom don't suit you, Vincent!"_

_His laugh followed her as she jumped off the roof._

_It was three months later that Vincent stopped showing up, that one of the residents of the manor they always sat and talked told her that Vincent had died when an experimental concoction went wrong and exploded._

_Rosamond was shattered. Vincent was the first person to treat her like a person and not a wild creature. Vincent was her first friend. Vincent was dead._

_For the first time in her life, she looked down at her shadow and thought to herself that maybe her village had been wrong about the shadows. Her shadows weren't the death omen, she was._

_Her body was starting to hurt, her head going fuzzy, and her vision blurring. She missed Vincent, and she had failed him by not being there for him when he needed her the most._

============

“Aunty Rosamond?” The soft voice of her niece rang out next to her. “Are you okay? You’re staring off into space.”

“I’m fine, Rain,” She replied, taking a deep breath and trying to lessen the tightness in her chest. “Just remembered something I haven’t thought about in a long time.”

A soft small hand brushed against her cheek, and then a small body was hugging her tightly. “Don’t cry, Aunty. It makes me wanna cry.”

Silence filled the room while Rosamond slowly gained control of her emotions again, the small body in her arms helping her ground herself.

“Should I go find another book for you to read to me tonight? We don’t have to continue if you’re too sad.” Rain asked once she looked down at her niece.

Rosamond smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I can keep going if you want to hear more. It’s not all sad, promise.”

Rain hesitated but then nodded eagerly, her smile back on her face and her plush pulled against both their chests. She looked so happy, but her eyes still held that slight worry in them. Oh, how Rosamond loved her niece!

“Okay, where was I?” Rosamond hummed softly, then nodded. “I remember now. The first person to ever treat me like a person instead of a wild creature. His name is Vincent and for the few months that I knew him, he was the only bright light in my life at that point. Sure I had my mother and father who were closer to treating me like a person than the others, but I didn’t really love them like I did Vincent. Vincent was closer to a father figure to me than my father ever was. He was the one who started to teach me how to control the shadows that surrounded me.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rain asked, her head tilted to rest against Rosamond’s shoulder. “How do you control shadows?”

“It was a special ability I was born with, it just never showed itself until I was already exiled from my village and before I was found by the hunting party. My shadow can be turned into whatever I want. I can solidify it and mistify it, meaning that I can make it as hard as metal or as thin as mist. But I had very little control over it at first and I was scared of my own power. I could explode and kill everyone, I could lose control and kill myself, I could think of millions of different ways that I could lose control of my power and every way involved death of some kind because that is what the shadows wanted. They screamed for destruction. And I didn’t realize this until much much later but they were also mourning a pack I wasn’t with.”

“Pack? Like how wolves have packs?” Rain asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

Rosamond smiled softly, but the smile was sad. “Yes. I had a pack I belonged to, just like wolves do. Except my pack was born away from me, and by the time I found them only two young girls were left alive from the pack that I belonged to. But at the same time, my pack was also in Nibelheim with me in the form of the Strifes. Nowadays the shadows have settled and are content, because my pack is finally complete and mostly always in the same area, though we added more people to the pack then the shadows originally called for.”

“Oh. So what happened with Vincent?” Rain asked, her head falling heavier onto Rosamond’s shoulder.

“Vincent helped me control them enough that when I was told he had been killed in an explosion I didn’t lose control of the shadows even when I was bawling my eyes out and running for the Strife household. At that point, everyone in town had to believe that I was human, that I was just a child who needed love and affection., that I could cry and sob and lock myself away in a room as I mourned the only one who had seen who I am from the get-go.”

“But you have heard Vincent’s story and know he wasn’t killed in an explosion, and I wish I had known the truth then, known how to find the truth with the shadows like I could do many years into the future, but I couldn't and I believed that he had been killed. It shattered me, and I had only just started putting myself back together with the help of my parents when we were graced with the news that mom was pregnant with a child, with Cloud. When he was born, he became my entire world, I started to rebuild everything around him until a month later when our father died and I had to restructure it again, this time as the support beam for our mother as she grieved over the loss of her husband while trying to keep a newborn alive and food on the table for two with the very small funds she had left.”

“It soon became my self appointed job to go hunting to bring food to the table and money to the household, and I was glad that my village had taught me everything about harvesting every single bit of a kill so you can get the most out of it. It really helped my mom out, what we couldn’t use in the house, we sold off to others who could use them which brought food and money into our household so we could continue living and getting the things I couldn’t hunt down and provide.”

“When Cloud turned five our mother fell dangerously ill. We had saved up enough money to get her to a proper doctor outside of Nibelheim to see what was wrong with her, only to learn that her heart was failing her. They had a medicine that could help keep her heart strong and treatments that they could provide, but the cost was too high for us, we couldn’t provide the treatments for our mother. So the doctor made a compromise with me. He would provide the treatments to help her stay alive longer, he would personally fill out the form for the medication, and he would make sure she stayed alive and healthy till we could bring her to a doctor with the proper equipment to fix her heart problems, and all I had to do was make sure to make four small payments a month for all of it until everything was cleared up and I had paid it all.”

“I took the offer, and the doctor performed the operations and had the pills made and properly labeled, and with a promise from me and Cloud, we were sent back home with our mother who slowly got better and stopped falling even worse every day. Making sure our mother took her medicine every day wasn’t hard, and I made sure Cloud and another adult were around to make sure she took the pills, and then I left the mountains to search for work to make more money, to make sure mom and Cloud wouldn’t struggle through this, to pay off the debt to the doctor, and to make my own way in the world. And for almost nine years I had succeeded in providing for my family and running my own mercenary business.”

A soft yawn against her shoulder caught her attention and she smiled down at her niece. Rain was struggling to keep her eyes open, her grip on her plushy slacking as she struggled to stay awake. Her niece really was the most precious person in the world to her.

“And that’s where we will stop for the night,” Rosamond said softly, shifting out of the bed and tucking Rain and her Chocobo into bed. “Sweet dreams, my sweet Rain.”

“Night Aunty Rosa,” Rain muttered, her eyes falling shut. She shifted closer to her black Chocobo plushie, a small smile gracing her lips as she fell into dreamland, one last soft whisper falling past her lips. “Night Zack.”

Rosamond smiled and quietly exited the room. It made her happy to see her niece so peaceful. It had been a long time since someone so young had relied on her as her niece did, the last one to do so had been Cloud and he hadn’t done so since he was five.

“I wish time would slow so I could enjoy my niece’s company more,” Rosamond muttered, dropping onto the sofa in her living room. Her eyes traveled the bare room to land on the bookcase filled with books and the end table beside it that had books and papers stacked on it. How much research had she done to catch up on the years she had missed? How much of the history on her shelves were false just to paint that horrible company that ruined her family’s lives in a better light? Just how much of everything had she done to help her friend V had made the events that the books spoke of come true, just how much of it was hidden from the public as knowledge Shinra never wanted to get out?

Just how much longer would she have continued living her life however she wanted outside of Shinra before Shinra turned on her and either made her one of them or killed her if it hadn’t been for the Rui sister’s job that faithful month?

Her eyes landed on the only binder in her entire bookcase, the one filled and kept in perfect condition. The binder of every letter she had ever sent to her mother, of every response her mother had sent her, of ever letter and note she had sent to V, of every response and note back from V, or every job request she had ever gotten, each one marked done or rejected in big red letters, of every letter and bill from the hospital that she had paid or not paid.

Just how many of those letters were rewritten and retyped just because she couldn’t stop crying over lying to her mother with every letter? To lie to her brother as well about what she was doing? Just how many years of her life had she lived in the control of the shadows? Being the Grim Reaper for those with the right price? For being a guard to people who deserved to die instead of live, because of all that they had done? Just how many years of her life were spent bathing in the blood of others just to sate the fools who wanted them dead?

Just how much of her life was she willing to tell her niece if she brought this back up again? Just how much of her life was she willing to share with anyone besides the shadows that surrounded her?

“Good night Zario,” Rosamond whispered into the dark empty room. “I hope you're having a better time running with your parents in the lifestream then I am living down here.”


	5. Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a chapter. Its a story update for everyone who enjoyed this story and is waiting for it to update.

This is an update chapter to tell you all that I am stepping back from this story for a little while until I can get other stories rewritten and finished because I have so many other stories open and being worked on at the moment that it is overwhelming to look at my what i need to update list and seeing so many stories that I need to update when I don't feel inspired or I don't like the direction they are going anymore. Half my stories are what I like for maybe 2 or 3 chapters and then it just feels like bullshit for the rest of the chapters. So I am going to step back and work on other stories one at a time and finish them before moving onto a new story to rewrite and finish.

And when I say rewrite I basically mean I am cleaning up grammar and plotholes with the help of my beta reader, my mother who is more than happy to sit down and read a chapter I have been working on and fixing any grammar I missed, any spelling I missed, and to ask questions about parts that she doesn't understand. God bless the wonderful woman who gave birth to me and doesn't ask for full descriptions of the fandom she is currently beta-ing a story for. She just goes with it and accepts that its fanfiction and she just needs to help me polish up the chapters I have written. And it helps that I can lay in my bed and answer her questions as she sits at my desk fixing and changing things. Yeah, free labor.

I do not know when I will next be able to update this story since it is not high on the lists of rewrites that I have. I apologize for everyone who enjoyed this story and want to see it finished, but I cannot in good faith continue with this story until I have stepped away for a while longer so I can regather my thoughts and regain inspiration for this story. I can promise that when I do come back to this story it will be better then it is now and will make a lot more sense.

Again I am sorry and I hope you all understand. I am not taking a break from writing, I have already done that and regained my creative spark, I am just stepping away from writing multiple stories at once and only focusing on one at a time so I don't burn myself out again.

Also, pretty much every story is being rewritten starting from the oldest story that I have ever written, Family Matters. I will rewrite and complete them in the order of oldest to newest for those that want to check out the updated and completed versions of the stories, and you will know when I get to them because I will have an MM/DD/YYYY Edit! in the summary of the one I am currently working on.

Again I am sorry and I hope you all can bear to be patient with me as I work on rewriting stories to my standards and making them better for you all to read.


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